Responding to the U.S. Army Air Forces' requirement for a strategic bomber with intercontinental range, Consolidated Vultee (later Convair) designed the B-36 during World War II. The airplane made its maiden flight in August 1946, and in June 1948 the Strategic Air Command received its first operational B-36.

Just sitting on the runway, the B-36 turned heads. The 163-foot-long behemoth, with its 230-foot wingspan and six rear-facing compound radial engines, dwarfed every other warplane in America’s arsenal, including the B-29 Superfortress. As one pilot later remarked, flying a B-36 was “like sitting in a bay window flying an apartment house.”

The Convair B-36 "Peacemaker"[N 1] is a strategic bomber built by Convair and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) from 1949 to 1959. The B-36 is the largest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft ever built, although it was exceeded in span and weight by the one-off Hughes H-4 Hercules. It has the longest wingspan of any combat aircraft.

The B-36 was the largest mass-produced piston engined aircraft ever made and the biggest wingspan combat aircraft ever built, although there have been larger military transports. The B-36 was the first bomber capable of delivering thermonuclear weapons from …

2021年7月26日 · When America needed a club with which to threaten the Russians, Convair produced the six-engine—eventually 10—B-36 long-range heavy bomber. It was the largest and heaviest piston-engine airplane ever to go into production. The B-36 was nicknamed the Peacemaker, with a nod to the infamous Colt six-shooter.

The B-36 Peacemaker is the largest production bomber ever built. Pilots referred to it as the “Magnesium Monster”. Although the B-36 was the largest bomber ever built and held the greatest combat unrefueled radius, it never dropped a bomb in combat.

Even if a B-36 were detected and Soviet fighters caught it, the pilot could evade them by making S-turns, said the Air Force. Of course, the Russians wouldn't have been flying USAF jets, as...

2024年10月19日 · Yet, as military aircraft go, nothing compares to the early Cold War B-36 strategic bomber. Ready to Go the Distance. The B-36 Peacemaker remains the largest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft ever built, and for good reason. It was designed to be capable of intercontinental flight without refueling.

2024年8月11日 · With regard to the nuclear capability of the B-36, General Christopher S. Adams Jr. (USAF Ret.) and former B-36 and B-52 pilot, recalled that “some of the bomb bay systems were modified to carry the MK-17 thermonuclear bomb, the largest ever developed. It weighed 42,000 lbs. and measured 24½ feet in length.”

2018年4月24日 · If you’ve never heard a B-36 flying over with “six turning and four burning,” all at full throttle, I don’t think I can drive home the amazing sound it made. Over the years, living back in Southern California, I could spot and identify a B …